NEILLSVILLE, Wis. (AP) -- A Clark County sheriff's deputy saved an 81-year-old man's life by pulling him from a burning minivan, but she acknowledges she had questioned whether she would be able to pull off such a rescue.

"I know Marathon County just had an officer who pulled somebody out of a burning vehicle and I remember thinking, 'I wonder if I would ever be able to do that,"' Deputy Dawn Jacobson recalled Tuesday.

"I guess when it comes to it, I can. I just knew I had to get there and get him out. I just wasn't afraid. I knew what I had to do and had to get it done."

Jacobson's chance came Monday afternoon when Donald Hoffmann of Willard had driven off a road about nine miles northeast of Neillsville and she rushed alone to the scene following a 911 call.

When she arrived, she saw smoke and flames from Hoffmann's 1995 Chrysler minivan sitting in a field at least 1,000 feet from the road.

She ran to it.

Hoffmann had his door open and was caught in the seat belt, she said.

"I did not have anything to cut the seat belt," she said. "I got him out by getting him out from underneath the seat belt and I have no idea how I did that. I think the lap belt may have burned off of him by then."

The flames in the vehicle were so intense she could not reach in to unbuckle the seat belt, said Jacobson, a deputy for 19 years who never had confronted such a rescue.

"I had gloves on and my glove did burn," Jacobson said. "Right around the cuff of my jacket got a little burned."

She pulled Hoffmann out and dragged him away, his jacket burned off his back but his shirt still protecting his skin, Jacobson said.

She feared the minivan would explode. "We got behind a big tree," she said.

Chief Deputy James Backus was unsure why Hoffmann drove off the road and into a "frozen, swampy area with rocks," but investigators believe the fire started then, perhaps from something breaking on the engine.

"Or did he spin the tires enough to get it hot enough to start a fire? We are not sure," Backus said.

Jacobson said Hoffmann's daughter indicated her father was in stable condition Tuesday at a Madison hospital.

"I guess I did save a life," the 44-year-old deputy said. "I feel good. I didn't do anything that any other officer wouldn't have done. I was just doing my job. I am just glad I had been that close."

(Copyright 2008 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)